Response Journal Week 8 - Kalil

At the very start, in chapter 93, we see a tense scene, in which the crew must make a choice between saving Pip, and capturing the whale. After a time, they cut him loose, but grudgingly so. When he returns to the boat, he is greeted with stern words, 
“We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama” (321). This serves as a reminder that the ultimate purpose of the whaling voyage is profit, though Ishmael makes Stubb’s statement even grander, claiming that “man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence” (321). In addition to being a reminder of the capitalist nature of the voyage (rather than a voyage in order to kill Moby Dick), it also brings up Pip’s race, and reminds us of the time (as we are apt to forget that slavery was still widely practiced).
Chapter 97, The Lamp, describes the fact that whaling ships are always well lit, for they have an abundance of oil. I assumed that this was a reference to the commonly used metaphor of light for knowledge (illumination), and a suggestion that the whaler lives the enlightened life. However, this chapter also serves to reinforce the romantic side of the coin that we addressed last week. At the very end, Melville writes, “He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game” (329) This shows the whaler as in touch with nature, and pure, much in the way that the romantics idealized.
Another extremely interesting scene was the point where each character looks at the doubloon. Every character has an extremely different interpretation of the coin, which shows how important perspective and point of view are. Especially interesting was Flask’s interpretation, in which the coin was just a coin. This goes back to the suggestion that men are ultimately motivated by wealth.